Tuesday, November 12, 2013

When will we start hearing demands for a new stadium on the South Side?

Perhaps
it’s just because I’m desperate to ignore the first snowfall that hit Chicago
on Monday – more than a month before the official start of winter.

Already obsolete?

But
I couldn’t help but be shaken up by wire service reports emanating from
Atlanta; where the Braves plan to move their ball club from their city-based
stadium to one based in the suburbs in just a couple of years.

THE
EXISTING BALLPARK – Turner Field – came about in the wake of the 1996 Olympic
Games staged in that southern city, then reconstructed into a modern ballpark
beginning with the 1997 season.

Turner
Field might not be among the stadia that gets people’s hearts all atwitter
(like the ballparks in Baltimore and Pittsburgh). But it is among the modern
round of construction – sports teams that saw themselves get new buildings in
the 1990s and early 2000s that were meant to be more than just a place to sit
while a ballgame is played in front of you.

There’s
nothing structurally wrong with the current Braves’ building. It’s just that
the officials in suburban Cobb County are willing to give more amenities to the
ball club, if they can steal away some baseball business for themselves.

Now
why should I care about this southern politicking taking place? It’s because
these stadiums always seem to get built in groups. Which means that now that
the current set-up of stadia can start to be thought of as obsolete, it makes
me wonder how many more ball clubs are going to start screaming for new
facilities from their home communities.

How soon will calls for "the Cell's" replacement start?

EVEN
IF, IN some cases, those current facilities aren’t fully paid for yet.

And
if that happens, how long will it be until our own city’s ball clubs start
screaming.

Renovate
Wrigley? This action by the Braves may convince the Cubs they’d be better off
at a location in suburban Rosemont (since the Cubs could claim the same line of
logic that the Braves are using to justify their move – it puts them closer to
the geographic center of their fan base).

In need of replacement before it's rebuilt?

Or
what about the White Sox? The building now known as U.S. Cellular Field cropped
up in 1991. Making it possibly the oldest of these new-style ballparks.

BY
THE BRAVES’ line of logic (Turner Field’s stint as a major league stadium will
last exactly 20 years), the White Sox ballpark is an antique.

It’s
also an antique that has never gotten much love from amateur architectural aficionados.

Will
the White Sox get it into their heads that it’s time for them to get a building
that will gain admiration – instead of mere functionality – from outsiders?

Now
I realize the political reality locally is that the process leading to the
construction of U.S. Cellular Field ate up a lot of political goodwill. There
are people who are still bitter that the building was ever constructed and that
they were unable to kill the bill that back in 1988 ensured that the 2005 World
Series was played on the South Side – and NOT in St. Petersburg, Fla.!

BUT
THE BUILDING is now part of an era that is being replaced. It’s just a matter
of time before officials want to start talking up the replacement of “the Cell.”

I
recently read an essay written by someone trying to have some fun – speculating
about what professional baseball would be like in the year 2114. He guessed
that the White Sox would have a new stadium by then – perhaps built across the
street on the site of the old Comiskey Park – because the new building would
last the same 80-year stint as the old.

Will the "Old Roman's" statue gather pigeon poop at another ballpark?

I
doubt it! The cycle of replacement of the current stadia has now begun.

My
guess is that U.S. Cellular will see its demise some time around the year 2030.
By then, the demands to replace it with something “more modern” will just be
too intense.

THE
2033 MAJOR League Baseball All-Star Game (the 100th anniversary of
the original All-Star game played at Comiskey Park) could well be the first
moment of glory for a new White Sox stadium somewhere.

The
real question is will 2005 be the only World Series championship won in the
current building, or will there be a few more before its demise? A part of me
thinks that is more likely than a championship at Wrigley any time soon!

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.